TIE Pilot - R - Saga Legends (SL13)

TIE pilots are specially trained to fly TIE starfighters in battle and on missions for the Empire..

As far as Hasbro is concerned, the whole Rebels multimedia event and all of the factors surrounding it are a little bit ambiguous. If it’s a show about Rebels, why are the line looks based on Imperials? The Rebels line look harkens back to The Legacy Collection with a stormtrooper as its symbol, and the concurrent The Black Series line, still holding onto the color black like grim death, sports a strange and bizarre TIE Pilot as its mascot. Although it goes without saying that stormtroopers and TIE pilots are throughout the Rebels television show, it just seems slightly out of place that they are the trademarks to represent it as well. Part of the second wave of Rebels Saga Legends, the TIE Pilot is part of the controversial (and wrought with delay) basic figure line. The simply articulated, yet well sculpted line has been the topic of much debate, criticism and praise. And we have even conceded ourselves that with the Rebels line these figures have never looked better. The same is true for the TIE Pilot. It’s hard for Hasbro to mess up a figure that is primarily black with very few paint operations, but we have to give them credit for making the TIE Pilot better than we even expected. It fits right in at home with the rest of the line and has a sculpt that should impress most.

If you can’t get passed five points of articulation (or less) then there isn’t much we’re going to be able to say to convert you, but we are admittedly quite taken with the TIE Pilot figure. He only comes with five points of articulation and his head movement is quite inhibited, but nonetheless has a very impressive and well detailed sculpt. His posture is a little bit “leaning forward” but you can easily pose his torso area backwards to counteract this. In short, it’s not the end of the world. His helmet looks appropriately large and has the perfect combination of animation and realism rolled into one distinct look. The black plastic used to cast him averages medium in sheen. In other words, he doesn’t look too dull or too shiny. He looks just right. Goldilocks would approve. The chest box looks phenomenal. Every last colored squared has been perfectly decorated. There are no runaway paint operations here in the least. Even more impressive are the Imperial insignias on his helmet. They’re not the slightest bit blurry and are evenly distant from each other as far as they’re placement is concerned. There aren’t a lot of different colors used when decorating the TIE Pilot, but what Hasbro used looks fantastic and we’re overall quite impressed with how this figure turned out.

Do you recall how Hasbro explained that while The Clone Wars action figures would maintain and animated appearance to them that the corresponding vehicle would remain realistic? That was a great decision in retrospect and it’s a protocol that they look to be carrying forward in the Rebels line. We say that to say this. The TIE Pilot looks incredible with many of the past TIE fighter vehicles Hasbro has produced in various collector lines; large scaled wings or small scaled wings. The Rebels Saga Legends figures can pilot these vehicles effortlessly and they look incredible awesome when they’re used as a backdrop or in a diorama. We even bet the kids will have a blast interacting the two as well. Would it be sublime if Hasbro could make super-articulated action figures for the Rebels television show? Well, that is almost a silly question because we all know the answer would be a resounding “yes”. But since that isn’t in the works at the moment, we can hopefully assuage your fears a bit that not all of the stuff is pure junk. The TIE Pilot should serve as reassurance that Hasbro is capable of making some solid figures with minimal articulation. Their strengths lie in their sculpts and the TIE Pilot has one of the strongest sculpts we have seen in the Rebels line to date.